AnalysisMulti-tracker is marginally less (and I mean very marginally) less efficient, but brings 2 advantages and 2 disadvantages.

Advantages1) You can get more Fusion Commander bodies on the field, improving durability and marginally mitigating the effectiveness of enemy heavy weapons.

2) Makes it slightly easier to bring drones to the front lines.

Disadvantages1) Can't split fire to the same degree of effectiveness, making them less valuable against light vehicles like sentinels and Vipers.

2) Marginally more expensive per hit.

Further, the QFC is considerably more effective with markerlight support.

Evaluation: It's interesting. On the one hand in smaller points games the 20 points extra is likely to be a very real advantage. On the other hand at these levels you are more likely to want to split fire between light vehicles.

In high points games the marginal difference in offensive capability is pretty meaningless, and the extra bodies is helpful. However you are also more likely to have reliable marker-light support.

ConclusionI think this is genuinely a situation where play testing is probably necessary to determine which is more useful. So I ask you guys: have you used the multi-tracker variant before? How has it fared for you? Has the marginal loss of split-fire effectiveness been annoying? Or is this our new go-to commander?

Note: This analysis becomes even more interesting on our other variants: Missile pod commanders actually become MORE efficient (but a margin of less than a point though), and CIB Commanders, whilst becoming marginally less points efficient per hit (a difference of 0.42 points per hit), also get inbuilt rerolling ones, making them less likely to self-destruct.

My big problem is, have you ever fired your Fusion Commander at a target that didn't have at least one Markerlight hit on it? Re-rolling ones is so easy to get, why waste a precious battlesuit hardpoint on it?

Arka0415 wrote:My big problem is, have you ever fired your Fusion Commander at a target that didn't have at least one Markerlight hit on it? Re-rolling ones is so easy to get, why waste a precious battlesuit hardpoint on it?

Often; I sometimes take lists with 7+ QFCs. In these situations they will be firing at up to 7 different targets, and so its not practical to get markerlight hits on all of them. Further, QFCs face fewer targeting limitations: LoS, Character etc.

It is very very very regular that I don't have markerlight tokens; hell, past turn 1 a lot of my markerlight caddies tend to be dead.

I really think it depends on how many points you want to spend. I've used the 3 FB and MT configuration and you are spot on about the pros and cons. Particularly when targeting characters, the re-roll of 1s is helpful.

However, as you noted the QFC usually gets at least 3 FB hits whereas the TFC (tri-fusion commander) gets *at maximum* 3 and is slightly less points efficient.

So if you are looking to minimize absolute point value, the TFC is a valid substitute for the QFC. Otherwise, I'd just go with the QFC.

Another difference is 3 shots are more likely to do less damage at things with invulnerable saves. Add in the option for your opponent to use a command reroll if the invulnerable shield is high, can make the multitracker even worse than on paper.

Lostroninsoul wrote:Another difference is 3 shots are more likely to do less damage at things with invulnerable saves. Add in the option for your opponent to use a command reroll if the invulnerable shield is high, can make the multitracker even worse than on paper.

It's true that I haven't calculated the distribution, but invuln save shouldn't change anything as all that I am crunching is points per hit. Once you have a hit there is no difference between 3 and a MT or 4.

The only real difference is that the 4 will have cases where all 4 hit, as well as a higher chance that 2 or less will hit, than the 3 FC.

Actually this analysis is quite interesting, so lets take it a step further:

There are a lot of situations where 4 fusion hits is overkill; such as light vehicles. In these cases you just waste the extra damage, so the Multi-tracker variant is actually even better, because it more reliably does 3 damage.

My thought process is this, if you want to tank hunt, 4FB is the way to go. If you want to save points / facing invulnerable saves, consider CIB commander. 3 FB + mulitracker is interesting though. We have a lot of ways to reroll ones at the moment (Markerlights/Ethereals/reroll stratagem/ relic/kauyon/exemplar of Kauyon/multitracker/command drone).

Also multitracker mean you have to focus all guns on one vechile anyways. Also hard to hit abilities and feel no pain effects can alter damage outputs. It's worth considering if markerlight support is low. At that point I'd consider taking some markerlight drones with commanders to offset that issue.

But your idea is a good, if not great idea. I like having options to help find room to allow us squeeze more cool things in our lists. I will keep your idea in mind if I am in a pinch for points

Last edited by Lostroninsoul on Dec 06 2017 01:25, edited 1 time in total.

Multitracker requiring all guns to fire at the same target while burning a precious hardpoint on the best shooting platform we have is absolutely ridiculous. Same reason to not take flamers on a commander, it's a waste of a hardpoint and the ability to hit on 2's. The QFC has always just BARELY done enough damage as is and is NEVER without a markerlight support shot on the big stuff. If you're shooting a character and can't light it up, they are generally much easier to bring down than a knight or LR so missing one every now and then isn't so big I want to reduce my effectiveness on other units. Just my two cents based on my meta and experience but I think the multitracker in it's current form is a waste purely because it burns a hardpoint.

Yojimbob wrote:Multitracker requiring all guns to fire at the same target while burning a precious hardpoint on the best shooting platform we have is absolutely ridiculous. Same reason to not take flamers on a commander, it's a waste of a hardpoint and the ability to hit on 2's. The QFC has always just BARELY done enough damage as is and is NEVER without a markerlight support shot on the big stuff. If you're shooting a character and can't light it up, they are generally much easier to bring down than a knight or LR so missing one every now and then isn't so big I want to reduce my effectiveness on other units. Just my two cents based on my meta and experience but I think the multitracker in it's current form is a waste purely because it burns a hardpoint.

Though they could go back to every suit having a built in multi tracker which would be nice but not game breaking but if course then you'd take QFC anyway as none of the other support systems are much use to him